Former LSU football star and Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon was rushed to a Baton Rouge hospital for a possible stroke Tuesday afternoon.

LSU Sports Information Director Michael Bonnette said that Cannon's family told the university "he has been hospitalized but he is alert."

Burl Cain, warden for Louisiana State Penitentiary, told The Advocate that a prison ambulance transported Cannon to a hospital after he appeared to be having a stroke at about 12:30 p.m. Cannon has worked as the director of the prison's dentist program for about 15 years.

Assistant Warden Cathy Fontenot told NOLA.com that Cannon was taken to the hospital by ambulance Tuesday afternoon, but said she couldn't confirm that he suffered a stroke.

Cannon, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1959, is 75 years old.

Cain said doctors at the R.E. Barrow Treatment Center at Angola told him Cannon was “conscious and coherent.”